Two years ago and we’re drying Conor and Fionnuala in the heartbeat and steam of the bathroom on a Saturday. Pyjamas fetched from the hot press, walls beaded with condensation. It’s like being in the hot core of love.

“In your trailer, it’s colder and darker than outside. You pull the wad of bills out and smooth them out in your frozen red palms. There’s a twenty, a ten, and eight singles. For one flashing moment you think of your rent, now ten days late. Then you get up and start walking back to town.”

Frank Haberle’s short stories have won the 2011 Pen Parentis Award, the 2013 Sustainable Arts Foundation Award, and the 2017 Beautiful Losers Magazine Award. They have appeared in magazines including the Stockholm Literary Review, Inwood Indiana, Necessary Fiction, the Adirondack Review, Smokelong Quarterly, Melic Review, Wilderness House Literary Review, Cantaraville and Hot Metal Press. A professional grantwriter with nonprofit organizations, Frank is also a volunteer workshop leader for the NY Writers Coalition. He lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife and three children.

The winning entry from this year’s Francis MacManus Short Story Competition, “Ashes” by Claire Zwaartman. “Ashes” is the story of a pair of siblings scattering their father’s ashes. It is about the complicated nature of family, disharmony and moving on. In their early twenties, Mike and Emer must let go of anger and resentment with this final act.

MA in Creative Writing student at UCC, Claire Zwaartman, has scooped the £3,000 first prize in the excellent Francis MacManus competition, established in 1986. “Past winners have gone on to receive national and international acclaim, including Claire Keegan, Molly McCloskey, Ivy Bannister, Anthony Glavin and Nuala O’Connor, and many more. Every year, the winning and shortlisted stories are produced and broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 in a season of new writing, read by leading actors.”